Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom

For
your own salvation you MUST be critical, because YOUR salvation IS
critical to the whole Sonship. We said before that the Holy Spirit IS
evaluative, and MUST be. But His evaluation does not extend BEYOND
you, or you would SHARE it. In YOUR mind, and your mind ONLY, He sorts
out the true from the false, and teaches you to judge every thought
that you allow to ENTER in the light of what God PUT there. Whatever
is IN ACCORD with this light He retains, to strengthen the Kingdom in
YOU. When it is PARTLY in accord with truth He accepts it and purifies
it. But what is OUT OF ACCORD ENTIRELY He rejects by judging against.
This is how He keeps the Kingdom perfectly consistent and perfectly
unified.

But
what you must remember is that what the Holy Spirit REJECTS the ego
ACCEPTS. This is because they are in fundamental disagreement about
everything, because they are in fundamental disagreement about WHAT
YOU ARE. The ego's beliefs on this crucial issue vary, and that is
why it promotes different moods. The Holy Spirit NEVER varies on this
point, and so the ONE mood that He engenders is joy. He PROTECTS this
by rejecting everything that does NOT foster joy, and so He alone can
keep you wholly joyous.

The
Holy Spirit does not teach your mind to be critical of other minds,
because He does not want you to teach your errors and LEARN THEM
YOURSELVES. He would hardly be consistent if He allowed you to
STRENGTHEN what you must learn to avoid. In the mind of the THINKER,
then, He IS judgmental, but only in order to unify it so IT CAN
perceive WITHOUT judgment. This enables the mind to TEACH without
judgment and therefore learn to BE without judgment. The UNdoing is
necessary only in YOUR mind, so that you cannot PROJECT it. God
Himself has established what you can project with perfect safety.
Therefore, the Holy Spirit's third lesson is: "Be vigilant ONLY
for God and HIS Kingdom."

This
is a major step toward FUNDAMENTAL change. Yet it is still a lesson in
thought REVERSAL, because it implies that there is something you must
be vigilant AGAINST. It has advanced far from the first lesson which
was PRIMARILY a reversal, and also from the second, which was
essentially the identification of what is MORE desirable. This step,
which follows from the second as the second does from the first,
emphasizes the DICHOTOMY between the desirable and the UNdesirable. It
therefore makes the ULTIMATE choice inevitable. But while the first
step seems to INCREASE conflict, and the second still ENTAILS it to
some extent, this one calls for CONSISTENT EFFORT AGAINST IT.

We
said already that you can be as vigilant AGAINST the ego as FOR it.
This lesson teaches not that you CAN be, but that you MUST be. It does
not concern itself with order of difficulty, but with CLEAR-CUT
PRIORITY FOR VIGILANCE. This step is unequivocal in that it teaches there
must be NO exceptions, but it does NOT deny that the
temptations to MAKE exceptions will occur. Here, your consistency is
called on DESPITE chaos. But chaos and consistency CANNOT coexist for
long, because they are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. As long as you must be
vigilant against ANYTHING, however, you are not recognizing this, and
are holding the belief that you can CHOOSE EITHER ONE.

By
teaching you WHAT to choose, the Holy Spirit will ultimately be able
to teach you that YOU NEED NOT CHOOSE AT ALL. This will finally
liberate your will FROM choice, and direct it towards creation WITHIN
the Kingdom. Choosing through the Holy Spirit will only lead you TO
it. You create by what you ARE, but this IS what you must learn. The
way to learn it is INHERENT in the third step, which brings together
the lessons inherent in the others, and goes beyond them towards real
integration.

If
you allow yourselves to HAVE in your minds only what God put there,
you are acknowledging your mind as God created it. Therefore, you are
accepting it AS IT IS. And since it IS whole, you are teaching peace
BECAUSE you have believed in it. The final step will still be taken
FOR you by God. But by the third step, the Holy Spirit has PREPARED
you FOR God. He is GETTING YOU READY to translate having into being by
the very nature of the steps you must take WITH Him. You learn first
that having rests on GIVING and NOT getting. Next you learn that you
learn what you teach, and that you WANT TO LEARN PEACE. This is the
CONDITION for identifying WITH the Kingdom, because it is the
condition OF the Kingdom.

But
you have believed that you are WITHOUT the Kingdom, and have therefore
excluded yourself FROM it in your belief. It is therefore essential to
teach you that YOU must be INCLUDED, and the BELIEF THAT YOU ARE NOT
is the ONLY thing that you must exclude. The third step is thus one of
PROTECTION for your minds by allowing you to identify ONLY with the
center, where God placed the altar to HIMSELF. We have already said
that altars are BELIEFS, but God and His creations are BEYOND belief
because they are beyond question. The Voice FOR God speaks only for
BELIEF beyond question, but this IS the preparation for BEING without
question.

As
long as belief in God and His Kingdom is assailed by ANY doubts in
your minds, His perfect Accomplishment is NOT apparent to you. This is
why you MUST be vigilant ON GOD'S BEHALF. The ego speaks AGAINST His
Creation, and therefore DOES engender doubt. You cannot go BEYOND
belief UNTIL you believe wholly. No one can EXTEND a lesson he has NOT
LEARNED FULLY. Transfer, which IS extension, is the measure of
learning because it is the MEASURABLE RESULT. This, however, does NOT
mean that what it transfers TO is measurable. On the contrary, unless
it transfers to the whole Sonship, which is immeasurable because it
was created BY the Immeasurable, the learning itself MUST be
incomplete.

To
teach the WHOLE Sonship WITHOUT EXCEPTION demonstrates that you
PERCEIVE ITS WHOLENESS and have learned that it IS One. Now you must
be vigilant to HOLD its Oneness in your minds because if you allow
doubt to enter YOU will lose awareness of its wholeness, and WILL BE
UNABLE TO TEACH IT. The wholeness of the Kingdom does NOT depend on
your perception, but your AWARENESS of its wholeness DOES. It is only
your awareness that NEEDS protection, because your BEING cannot be
assailed. But a real sense of being CANNOT be yours while you are
doubtful of what you ARE. THIS IS WHY VIGILANCE IS ESSENTIAL. Doubts
ABOUT being MUST not enter your mind, or you CANNOT know what you are
with certainty.

Certainty
is OF God for YOU. Vigilance is not necessary for truth, but it IS
necessary AGAINST ILLUSION. Truth is WITHOUT illusions, and therefore
WITHIN the Kingdom. Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION. But
you must learn to ACCEPT truth because YOU THREW IT AWAY. You
therefore saw yourself AS IF you were WITHOUT it. By making another
Kingdom WHICH YOU VALUED, you did NOT keep the Kingdom of God alone in
your minds, and therefore placed part of your mind outside of it. What
you have made has thus divided
your will and given you a sick mind that MUST be healed. Your
vigilance AGAINST this sickness IS the way to heal it.

Once
YOUR mind is healed, it radiates health and thereby TEACHES healing.
This establishes you as a teacher who teaches LIKE me. Vigilance was
required of me as much as of you. But remember that those who will to
teach the same thing MUST be in agreement about what they believe.

The
third step, then, is a statement of what you WANT to believe, and
entails a willingness to RELINQUISH EVERYTHING ELSE. I told you that
you were just beginning the second step, but I also told you that the
third one FOLLOWS it. The Holy Spirit WILL enable you to go on if
you follow Him. Your vigilance is the sign that you WANT Him to
guide you. Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that
effort ITSELF is unnecessary. You have exerted GREAT effort to
preserve what you have made BECAUSE it is NOT true. Therefore, you
must now turn your effort AGAINST it. Only this can cancel out the
NEED for effort, and call upon the BEING which you both HAVE and ARE.
THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, because it is ALREADY true
and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God.
Therefore, inclusion is total and Creation is without
limit.